The Dream
by kohitsujichan
Summary: Kyouko has a dream which leaves her feeling conflicted.


**I do not own Skip Beat!**

Kyouko awoke with a smile on her face, reveling in the warmth, the feeling. Then, she felt the futon beneath her. She was awake. It had been a dream. She frowned, before snuggling back into the covers, not wanting to wake up from the dream. As her groggy mind cleared, her frown deepened, this time, for another reason, the content of the dream. She, of all people, should not be having such a dream, and certainly not enjoying it. She would never experience the feeling of her dream world in her real life, so she might as well stop reveling in it this instant.

A smile crept onto her face.

"Stop it!" she told herself, slapping both cheeks in an effort to wake herself up and snap herself out of it.

She succeeded…for a while.

"You seem to be in a good mood this morning, Kyouko-chan," the okami-san said, noticing her smile as she came downstairs for breakfast.

"Hmm? Oh, no, not really," she said, wiping off the smile that had crept back on her face.

She tried again to keep an even temper, as she rode her bike to LME, as she went through her list of LoveMe assignments, as she looked over her scripts. Despite her efforts, she could not keep that sneaky little smile from making its way back onto her face. Every time she caught her lips curving, she would get angry at herself, then frown fiercely for the next few minutes, until she would relax again, and the smile would make its way back. It seemed to be an endless process…and one that was tiring out her facial muscles.

"Mou!" her best friend exclaimed, finally fed up with the strange display. "Are you going to tell me what it is already, or am I going to have to drag it out of you?" she asked.

"Eh? What do you mean?" she asked.

"Are you serious? Normally, your emotions are like a rollercoaster, but today, you look like an entire theme park! Are you trying to tell me there isn't a reason behind that?"

Kyouko blushed. "It's nothing really."

Kaene glared. "Don't try and pull that on me!"

"It really is nothing," she said. "It's just…I had um, a dream."

"A dream?" Kaene asked with a deadpan expression. "You look like Tokyo Disney over a dream?"

"Am I that bad?" she asked worriedly.

"Theme. Park." She repeated.

Kyouko looked at her feet.

"It can't be that bad," Kaene said. This was Kyouko, after all. It wasn't like she'd had a sex dream. She shook the thought out of her head. If that were the case, there would be a lot more blushing and a lot less smiling.

"I just— I can't say it," she stopped herself, blushing.

"Last week, I dreamed that I turned into a taco and was being chased by a pack of hungry Chihuahuas," Kaene said, face expressionless. "There. I told you my embarrassing dream. Your turn."

"But Mouko-san!" she pouted.

Kaene glared.

"Alright, but please don't hate me Mouko-san!" she said.

"I'm not going to hate you, so out with it," she demanded.

"I…I had a dream that somebody loved me," she said, her face turning bright red.

"That's it?" Kaene asked. "I told you my taco dream, and all you have for an 'embarrassing' dream is one where somebody loves you?"

Kyouko nodded. "But that's not the embarrassing part," she said.

"Then what is it?" she asked.

"…I…ked…it," Kyouko mumbled, looking at her toes and twining her fingers.

"What?"

"I said I …ked…it," she mumbled again.

"Fine," Kaene huffed. "I get it. You can't tell your best friend."

"No! That's not it!" she said, finally audible.

"Then what is it?" she asked.

"I liked it," she said with teary eyes and a red face. "I liked the feeling so much I didn't want to wake up!"

"And?"

"It's _me_! I don't have dreams where people love me, and if I do, I don't like them. I scorn love. It's a useless emotion. I know better than to want it. I don't want it! I don't! It's never going to happen in real life anyway. I won't let it, so why should I be so happy about that feeling? I shouldn't want to feel that way. I should be disgusted. I swore off love, yet I had that sort of dream, and I liked it!" she rambled.

"Whoa! Breathe," Kaene instructed.

Kyouko took a deep breath and dropped her eyes to the floor.

"There's nothing weird about liking the feeling of being loved," Kaene told her. "Maybe that just means you're ready to defeat the pink curse."

"Eh? But nobody actually loves me," Kyouko said.

"Um…yeah…" Kaene said. She could think of plenty, but she wasn't about to tell Kyouko."But that's beside the point. Wasn't the point of being here to get others to love you?"

"Well, and to learn to love again," she said.

"Great, so you're halfway there," Kaene said. "Now if you'd left me behind already, I would never have forgiven you, but since it's only halfway, I guess it's ok."

"Mouko-san! I'll never leave you!" she said, launching herself at her friend.

"Oi! Get off!" she shouted. "If the president tells you you're graduating, you'd better get out. I won't forgive you for holding back because of me."

"But you just said—"

"Nevermind! Get off!" Kaene said, prying Kyouko off of her.

That was the position Yashiro and found them in when they approached. Kyouko was reaching madly for Kaene, who keeping Kyouko at bay with her palm on Kyouko's forehead and arm outstretched. It wasn't really a new sight.

"Good afternoon, Kyouko-chan, Kotonami-san," Yashiro greeted with a smile.

Kaene nodded while Kyouko exuberantly replied.

"Good afternoon, Yashiro-san, Tsuruga-san. Did you just get back from a job?"

"Yes," Yashiro replied, before Ren got the chance. "Ren just finished up a shoot. We had time for lunch before his next job, so I thought I'd bring him back to LME to make sure he eats real food."

"You have to have a nutritious lunch, Tsuruga-san," Kyouko launched into her familiar lecture. "If you don't, you won't have proper energy to devote to your jobs for the rest of the day."

"I know, Mogami-san," he said with a chuckle. "You remind me of that quite often."

Kyouko colored.

"We were actually wondering if you'd join us for lunch," he glanced at Kaene, "uneless you have other plans."

"Don't worry about me," Kaene said with a grin, "I have a filming to get to."

Kaene collected her script, put them in her bag and was out the door in a flash. She would have loved to stick around and see how Kyouko's dream tortured her sempai, but she'd have to get that out of her later. For now, she could only imagine.

Kyouko had stopped her odd cycle of smiling and frowning, thanks to Kaene's advice. It still felt a little strange to her to be so happy over a dream, and those sorts of feelings, but she'd never felt this way before, and she was finding it unexpectedly pleasant.

"You seem to be in a good mood today, Kyouko-chan," Yashiro observed. Perhaps it was the huge grin on her face that gave it away.

"I guess I am," she replied, smiling even brighter.

Ren loved seeing Kyouko happy, but sometimes it made him nervous, and this was one of those times. Kyouko's cheeks were dyed pink, her eyes were shining, her lips were curved into a permanent grin. She had all the symptoms of a girl in love, and as far as he knew, he nothing to do with it. This was bad.

"Is there any particular reason for your good mood?" Yashiro questioned, asking exactly what was on Ren's mind.

"Um, I had a good dream last night," she said, trying to remain vague.

"Oh? What was it about?" Yashiro asked, again mirroring Ren's thoughts.

"Um…I don't remember," she said, eyes shifting to the ground and face flushing.

They reached the cafeteria just as Kyouko began her evasive maneuvers. Yashiro could sense that Kyouko wasn't telling the whole truth, but he knew that only Ren could get it out if her. He'd helped enough. For now, he'd let Ren take over.

"Oh, I have to take this," Yashiro said, pulling out his phone to take the imaginary phone call and scurried off around the corner.

"Wow, yashiro-san is fast," Kyouko commented, "I didn't even hear it ring."

"It must be on vibrate," Ren lied.

He saw through Yashiro's ruse right away. Yashiro hadn't even used a glove, a sure sign that he was going to stash his phone again within ten seconds, not take an important call. Thankfully Kyouko hadn't seemed noticed.

Once they had both gotten proper nutritious lunches, they found a table and sat down.

"You really do look happy, Mogami-san," Ren observed.

"I am," Kyouko said with a bright smile.

"Are you sure you don't remember your dream at all?" he asked.

"Um.."

"If it makes you so happy, it would make me happy to hear it," he prompted with a glittering smile.

The light was hurting her eyes and frying her grudges, so she gave in. "It's really embarrassing! Mouko-san said it wasn't that bad though…"

"Oh?"

"Um, well…" she stuttered.

"Yes?" he said, smiling gently.

"Um…I dreamed that someone loved me," came her rush of words.

"Oh," Ren replied on autopilot. His mind was racing a mile a minute, too fast to filter his thoughts and keep him from asking, "Was it someone in particular?"

Kyouko turned bright red and his heart nearly stopped.

"No, no, no, not at all. It wasn't anyone I know," she denied vehemently, "Well, it could have been, I guess. I don't know!"

"You don't know?" he asked.

"Um…well, he didn't really have a face."

"Didn't have a face?" he asked, trying not to laugh in sheer relief…or was it disappointment?

"Um, no," she said. "You know how dreams are all fuzzy sometimes? Well, it was like that. He didn't really have a face. He was just there. I don't remember the details very well. I don't even remember what was going on…just that he loved me, and…it was nice."

By the time Kyouko finished speaking, she couldn't even come close to meeting his eye. She stared at the table, at her hands folded in her lap, at the napkin dispenser, at empty space.

"Um, I know it's never going to happen or anything. I haven't changed my mind about love, but Mouko-san said it was ok that I liked the feeling, so I'm just kind of letting myself enjoy the feeling," she said, peeking up at him.

He had one of _those_ smiles on his face as he looked at her, the kind that made Kyouko fear for her heart.

"It's only natural to enjoy the feeling of being loved," he said. "And don't count on it never happening, Mogami-san. You never know. Someone could be loving you right now."

"Eh? There's no way that would ever happen!" she protested.

"Why not?" he asked with a quirk of his lips.

"Because it's me!" she argued, "I've given up on love!"

"That doesn't necessarily mean that love has given up on you, Mogami-san."

"Eh?"

"Maybe your subconscious is trying to tell you something," he said.

"Like what?" she asked, tilting her head like a confused puppy.

His eyes, narrowed almost imperceptibly and his voice came out velvety smooth."Like maybe you're more ready for love than your think."

"Ren, we have to get going," Yashiro called, reappearing.

"I'll be right there," he said, before turning to Kyouko. "Think about it, Mogami-san."

And she did think about it.

"What's wrong now?" Kaene asked when she came back from her filming.

"Eh? What do you mean?" she asked.

Kaene sighed. Her friend had started the day looking like a theme park, and now, looked like a tomato. If this kept up, Kyouko would be more exotic than the president…without the need for costumes.

"You're blushing," she stated.

"I am?" Kyouko asked, shifting her gaze about.

"Why?" Kaene demanded.

"Um…"

"Kyouko?" she said, her voice carrying a warning.

"It's my dream," she said.

"Mou! We've gone over this already. It's ok if you like it."

"It's not that," she said.

"Then what is it?" she asked. Her brows contracted in suspicion. "Did Tsuruga-san say something to you?"

"Well…"

"Did he?" she demanded.

"He said my dream was my subconscious telling me I was ready for love," she explained.

"Did he?" Kaene asked, suppressing a laugh.

"He said I should think about it."

"And how's that going?" Kaene asked with a smirk. "Discover anything?"

"I don't get it at all!" Kyouko wailed.

"Ah well, maybe it was just a regular dream after all," Kaene laughed. It seemed that LoveMe wouldn't be losing any of its members just yet.

**AN: I've realized that all my stories are kind of alike. Sorry ****-_-;**** Hopefully they're still mildly enjoyable though. I actually got the idea for this story from a dream I had. Only mine involved grocery shopping, rollerskating and scolding a child... I figured I'd leave that part out of this story ;) Thank you for reading! Leave me a review if you'd like to let me know what you think.**


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